I might as well get this out of the way right now. I am a big fan of wines that compliment food. I believe wine and food to be natural partners, each enhancing the other and enabling a higher level of enjoyment. But not all wines are good food wines, some are simply better as cocktails. So what makes a good food wine?
How To Buy Good Food Wines
There are a handful of things I keep in mind when selecting a wine to compliment a meal. What follows is my four-point shopping list for food wines. [Note: Since you can't taste most wines before buying them, I've found it helpful to find a good wine merchant who can identify wines that meet these criteria!]
- Seek Low Alcohol - high alcohol levels (above 14.5%) are an unfortunate side-affect of today's popular wine style. For a great food match, ignore popular styles and swim upstream until you find wines that are naturally low in alcohol. Not coincidentally, such wines are often naturally high in acidity, which makes your mouth water - an essential condition for tasting and enjoying your food. Excessive alcohol leaves the mouth feeling hot, a sensation that conflicts with most foods but particularly with spicy foods. In addition, as alcohol takes its affect on the diner, said diner grows increasingly unable to discern flavors in either the wine or the food, and unable to drive safely home.
- Seek Balanced, Earthy Wines - A wine's "Balance" refers to the interplay between its fruit, acid (structure), alcohol, oak, and tannin (astringency). In a well-balanced wine each element contributes aromas and flavors without any one being dominant - like a perfect quintet. I like to add two more elements that help a wine compliment food - the characteristics of earth and vegetation. And since many recipes feature the earthy flavors of spices, mushrooms and vegetables, wines with these flavors extend a nice bridge between the food and the wine.
- A Minimum of Oak! - Gobs of fruit and oak make for high scores these days. They also make a wine that is best tasted by itself (the same way most wine writers taste when assigning their scores.) But the oak that seemed so pleasant during the cocktail hour will overpower your food when that same wine is brought to the table. if you want a wine that goes well with your meal, ignore the scores!
- What Are You Serving? - So you've found a wine that has low alcohol, earthy aromas, balanced oak, good acidity and an affordable price. But you're not quite home just yet. Don't forget to tell your wine merchant what you are serving and how it is prepared! A fish that begs for a crisp white wine when poached might argue for Rose when grilled or stewed.
A note about being a contrarian. While you may win kudos among wine geeks for serving wines with big scores, there is a price to pay. Wines with big scores tend to be in short supply, which means they cost more. And since they don't compliment food as well, the wise and frugal gourmet is well served by avoiding the high scoring wines and spending the savings on superior ingredients!
Recommended Wine
Most of the wines I include in our portfolio are food friendly, with some notable exceptions for the cocktail set. But here is a new food-friendly wine I recently added - the Foppoli 2006 Estate Chardonnay, Russian River Valley $35. This wine is completely unoaked, and rewards the nose with refreshing floral aromas of orange blossom, citrus peel and the slightest hint of earthy minerals. For the taste buds, it comes through with a pleasant light middle-weight mouthfeel and flavors of grapefruit and melon. Foppoli Vineyards provided Russian River Chardonnay grapes to some fairly hoity toity wineries. This is their first estate wine produced since prohibition. Enjoy this wine with shrimp and avocado salads, any fruits of the sea, Chicken or Turkey, and lighter, low-fat meats such pork or veal most anyway. Though i can think of better wines for Barbecue, this versatile wine serves commendably well unless the sauce is particularly vinegary!
Cheers!
Dave Chambers, Wine Merchant
Today's Quote (from the Fantesca Winery website):
“Fish, to taste good, must swim three times. Once in Water, Once in butter, and once in wine.”
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